ABSTRACT
BOTH engineering and economics have been concerned D with the production of wealth since their beginnings. But they approached the problem from such different angles and with such different aims that at the outset they scarcely came into touch. Adam Smith and James Watt were friends at the University of Glasgow, when Smith was delivering the lectures that grew into the Wealth of Nations and when Watt was making his experiments upon Newcomen’s engine. Both of these Scotsmen had a plan for increasing the efficiency of production; but one plan centered in freedom for individual initiative, and the other in a separate condenser. It was not at all apparent at the time that this economist and this mechanical engineer could contribute to each other’s work.
